Crowds gather to see a reindeer during Thursday’s Victorian Streetwalk in downtown Saratoga Springs.
Ed Burke — The Saratogian

SARATOGA SPRINGS >> Santa’s elves were all ready for their closeups at the 2013 Victorian Streetwalk, where they clustered around the Clauses’ Christmas cottage in front of Putnam Market. When people approached the red- and green-clad elves, stories were spun of life up at the North Pole.

“I’m Snowflake,” said an elf wearing a slightly large red sweater with a snowflake pattern on it. She beamed and twirled her hair around her finger. “Up at Santa’s workshop, it’s my job to make sure all the snowflakes are unique. We have an assembly line. I love to make the different patterns.”

Her second job was to measure the snow, she said, to be sure every place got the correct snowfall. Christmas Eve, she must ensure that the boss has enough snow to land on the rooftops.

Although this year’s Streetwalk stayed mostly dry with no snow, the elf said she was certain some of the white stuff was on its way.

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Next to Snowflake stood Tink, a toy soldier about the size of an 11-year-old girl, which happened to also be Snowflake’s size. Tink wore a gold and red uniform, and carried a bugle.

“I’m the superintendent of all the toy soldiers,” she said. “I also guard Santa’s castle, to be sure it stays a secret.”

Their special job for the evening was to encourage all the attending children to believe in Santa and write him letters. Plenty of believers stood in line to see Santa, a queue that snaked out across Broadway. Kids played with their Prudential Manor Homes balloons and waited.

Other children stood around the reindeer pen, staring at the two live reindeer placidly munching hay.

“Do you think she’ll remember this?” said real estate developer Tommy Uccellini of Saratoga Springs, looking down at his one-year-old baby, Eliza, whom he was wearing in a baby carrier. Eliza didn’t seem interested in the reindeer, but she did lean her head back and stare up at the lights. And she absolutely loved the music playing all over town, said her mother, Rachel, who especially liked the Skidmore Bandersnatchers. Their Facebook site states: “We are all men, and we sing a cappella.”

“I’m a member of the Skidmore Community Chorus,” Rachel said. “I went to rehearsals and performances all through my pregnancy with Eliza. She’s a Mozart Requiem baby.”

When asked about this, Eliza cooed. Rachel said the baby’s current vocabulary includes “Mama,” “Dada” and something close to “bathtub.”

“She also has this great fake cough,” Rachel said.

There would be no coughing, no moving, no smiling, even, for the mannequins in Piper Boutique’s window — who were real women taking turns to pose in the decorated space. These live mannequins were one of the most popular sights of this year’s Streetwalk, with kids and adults alike watching them till they moved, and then cheering.

“Live mannequins had never been done before in Saratoga Springs,” said Piper President Alessandra Bange-Hall.

Samantha Ferri of Burnt Hills and Annie Kuznia of Ballston Spa, Piper employees, waited to take their turn in the window and watched the other two girls model. The two sets of mannequins posed in half-hour shifts.

“Layering, and mixing patterns and textures are big,” she said. “Tribal prints and embellished garments and chunky jewelry, too.”

Ironically, just outside Piper stood Heather Freitag with two friends, all of them dressed in Victorian evening wear that she had sewn herself — no tribal prints in sight. The group has been attending the Streetwalk for three years.

“I get ideas for the costumes from pictures in books,” she said. “We use different pieces of the outfits for all kinds of events.”

Her crew carried extremely large baskets full of homemade chocolate chip, oatmeal and sugar cookies.

“We made them all,” Freitag said. “There were 1,500 to start, and 36 cupcakes, but those went pretty quickly. Now we are going to wander until all the cookies are gone.”

The most enthusiastic Victorian Streetwalk attendees would likely do the same thing, happy the rain held off.